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writing Simon Schama thought and opinion history and literature lit culture and society

The great essayists are all virtuosi of opening sentences that pull you into the matter with a dead-on observed moment or an epigram.

[…]
Essay writing and reading is our resistance to the pygmy-fication of the language animal; our shrinkage into the brand, the sound bite, the business platitude; the solipsistic tweet. Essays are the last, heroic stand for the seriousness of prose entertainment; our best hope of liberating text from texting.

Simon Schama ends his otherwise excellent meditation on writing, inspired by Orwell’s classic Why I Write, on a rather gimmicky note. Elsewhere in the essay, he bemoans “the dumbness of the 140-character rule.” And yet, what is a good tweet if not a “virtuoso opening sentence” that pulls you into the story being shared?
9-19-2012
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